John, Clark, list,
I think its clear that an uninterpreted sign (i.e. a representamen that does not generate an actual interpretant in some system) is not functioning as a sign. But I cant help thinking that your scepticism about icons is based on a misunderstanding of iconicity as an element of Peirces late semiotic. This is exactly where Stjernfelts work on the dicisign (and on the role of diagrams in cognition) is most helpful. The subject of blindsight actually comes up in Chapter 5 of Natural Propositions. The neuroscientific explanation of the phenomenon is the ventral-dorsal split in perception, which Stjernfelt shows is at least parallel to the subject-predicate analysis of the proposition; but in order to see the connections between the logical and the physiological analyses, we need to see the proposition in a Peircean way (and not in a Frege-Russell way) as a special case of the dicisign, which is the cognitively crucial form of semiosis. I think you could really help us work through a critical study of this analysis, if you have time to read the book and perhaps lead a thread this fall. Were going to postpone the beginning of the seminar until September, to give more people time to obtain and peruse the book (or at least the first few chapters) before we start. gary f. From: John Collier [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 31-Jul-14 6:19 PM To: Gary Fuhrman; 'Peirce-L' Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for Gary f, This topic has come up before, partly because of my scepticism about icons. Joe was helpful to me in working out a resolution I could live with. I suppose that you are familiar with Sellars Myth of the given. He basically denies the independent existence of uninterpreted phenomena. C.I. Lewis accepted them, but believed they were ineffable. His reasons for thinking they existed were entirely theoretical, because being ineffable we could not experience them without interpreting them. Presumably this is because it is psychologically impossible as soon as we have a feeling we group it with others (a shade of red, a particular tone). Given the way our neural system works, it is pretty hard to see how it could be otherwise. Sellers, though, just thinks there is no need to postulate such things as pure uninterpreted feelings. I think he is right, but still I think we can abstract the experiential aspect of our mental signs, but it isnt easy. I like to look at the corner of a room and gradually make it go in, then out again, then flat, and circle through those more quickly and get confused so I dont see it any clear way (a third). Normally we cant do this. Most of our thoughts come fully interpreted, and the neuropsychology of sensory perception, for example, requires that our experiences are sorted by habits inherited from our evolutionary past in order for us to perceive things. There is an exception, called blindsight, which is processed when the visual cortex is damaged and lower brain systems are all that can be relied on. People with blindsight dont have the usual phenomenal experiences we have, but can still discriminate visual properties to some degree as shown by their behaviour. Presumably there are visual signs that guide their behaviour despite the lack of conscious experience of them. All in all, I am pretty sceptical that uninterpreted icons can be anything more than confused experiences or abstractions, and that habit rules the day for mental experience. John From: Gary Fuhrman [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: July 31, 2014 11:25 PM To: 'Peirce-L' Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for John, in order to make sense (i.e. to convey any information in the Peircean sense), it must function both iconically and indexically, as a dicisign. A legisign has to be habitual, but an index cannot be habitual, because it must designate something here and now: an individual, not a general. This is the germ of the idea that Natural Propositions is about. gary f. From: John Collier [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 31-Jul-14 4:31 PM To: Clark Goble; Søren Brier; Peirce-L Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for Clark, I dont think something can be a sign unless it is habitual. How could it make any sense otherwise? John From: Clark Goble [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: July 31, 2014 10:16 PM To: Søren Brier; Peirce-L Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for On Jul 31, 2014, at 12:19 PM, Søren Brier <[email protected]> wrote: My I add a few thoughts? I agree that sign are reals, but when they manifests as tokens their Secondness must enter the world of physics and thermodynamics must apply. It is work to make signs emerge in non-verbal communication or as language from ones feeling and thoughts. Even to produces thoughts and feeling demands work. That would be a biosemiotic view (but one that we have not discussed much). But I think you are correct in saying that Peirce did not do any work on this aspect of sign production. Again this gets at ontological issues. Remember Peirces conception of mind and matter which gets a bit tricky. The world of physics is the world of matter which is mind under habit. But there can be signs of mind and not matter. Thats more the issue Im getting at.
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